Excellent news from Screen Daily: writer-director Clio Barnard has used the money from her Wellcome Trust and BFI Screenwriting Fellowship to fund work on a new film, Trespass. An adaptation of Rose Tremain‘s novel, it’ll explore lives fractured by the memories of abuse; for this, she’s “spent a year meeting psychologists, psychiatrists and neuroscientists investigating memory, perception, hallucination and the impact of trauma.” In what I gather is an attempt to break from traditional representation, Barnard has done two things: find ways to “describe memory on film in a way that’s informed by all these conversations [she’s] had with scientists,” and mire herself in the point-of-view of someone willing to carry out sexual abuse — a project assisted by research conducted with forensic psychologists.

There’s no word on when Trespass will commence shooting, but we can only hope it’s being quickly prepared.

Now for something completely different. In June of 2013, Channing Tatumsummarized his hesitation about directing Magic Mike 2 by noting the act of following in some big footsteps, saying “it is hard for me and Reid [Carolin] to direct after one of the greatest directors of our time.” Now he and the frequent creative partner are going to step behind the camera for something perhaps a little easier.

THR tell us they’re at work on Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, an adaptation of Matthew Quick‘s YA novel, in which an eponymous young man, on his birthday, hopes to kill an ex-best friend and himself. The project, once meant for James Ponsoldt, might give Tatum a starring role as Herr Silverman, a Holocaust-class teacher who attempts to stop the killing.

The Weinstein Company are planning to distribute Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, while Tatum and Carolin’s Free Association are to produce. A writer is currently being sought.

David Lowery has been making headway on his follow-up to last year’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, with The Wrap telling us the Disney-backed Pete’s Dragon‘s remake may include Bryce Dallas Howard, who’d be joining Robert Redford and newcomer Oakes Fegley. Details on this project are a bit scant as of right now, but, aside from an excision of musical aspects, things sounds close enough to the 1977 film: an orphaned boy named Pete is raised by a dragon “in a forest that’s being threatened by loggers.”

Lowery has co-written the project with Saints producer Toby Halbrooks.

Following in Tatum’s footsteps and deciding that acting is not entirely his biggest concern right now, Oscar Isaac has been signed to play the eponymous villain in Bryan Singer‘s X-Men: Apocalypse. The follow-up to this summer’s deeply, truly embarrassingX-Men: Days of Future Past will feature the gang of mutants fighting Apocalypse, a supervillain twink who has the Four Horseman on his side. (In so many words: he’s all-powerful and will put the team to their ultimate test, etc.) For being set in the ’80s, it’ll bring back the X-Men: First Class team — Fassbinder and Isaac going toe-to-toe, oh my! — and is set to open on May 27, 2016. [Variety]

There’s also the notice that Cheap Thrills helmer E.L. Katz has come aboard You’ll Be the Death of Me. The narrative (or what we’ve heard of it) is intriguing: as scripted by Mark Hammer (Two Night Stand), it follows “two single New Yorkers as their budding romance is complicated by a masked knife-wielding psychopath.” Lionsgate and Mandeville Films are supporting the title. [THR]